at the creative coop

Raised in a tight-knit entrepreneurial family of makers, tinkers and musicians, Jodi attended art school in Europe and then graduated with honors from Columbus College of Art and Design in 1994. Jodi’s affinity to giving back to community and fostering startup projects, lead her to become part of the young marketing and design professionals who were instrumental in the birth of the arts scene which rejuvenated Columbus’ Short North District. With nearly twenty-five years experience with top national retail, design and marketing agencies, Jodi played a key role in pioneering international online fine art sales, as founder and part-owner, acting as head of marketing, at http://absolutearts.com - provider of marketing tools for artists and collectors. Jodi took the business from startup to profitable with art sales and commissions for a range of clients from Oprah to Axel Rose to numerous international C-level collectors. The business earned recognition by ArtNews as one of the world’s top new arts businesses in 2004. Following a passion for mentoring Jodi has lectured in design and marketing at CCAD, published numerous articles on small business ownership and development, as well as taken on leadership roles with business and arts organizations.

In 2010, after selling her interests in absolutearts.com, Jodi shifted her focus to JodiMelfiDesign where she provides ground floor branding and marketing development for early stage entrepreneurs. Expanding her dedication to incubating ideas, she cofounded the coworking space creativeCOOP in 2016.

Jodi lives at Orchard House, a boutique country inn, outside of Granville, Ohio with her husband, Dean, who is owner/innkeeper, and their two teen daughters.

"Doing graphic design is about the best job I can imagine. I so thoroughly enjoy collecting my clients' ideas, understanding their goals, doing research, then creating interesting designs that work for them - it's like solving a big visual puzzle. I sometimes have a hard time stopping at the end of the day. I do full service identity design, logo design, image branding, collateral print materials, signage, environmental graphics."

I've recently worked with these wonderful businesses and organizations to develop branding and solid visual identities. For each, I either designed a new logo, series of logos in the brand family, or refined an existing logo. It's a holistic approach that I strive to achieve and to educate those involved the importance of consistency. I create graphic style guides so that each client can "take their design home" and be in control of their visual identity.